With opening night for The Dark Knight Rises just days away, reviews have started appearing. They’ve been overwhelmingly positive. However, a few reviews have dared to suggest that it’s average or even bad. Can you imagine the gall of these critics to do what they’re paid to do- give an opinion about a movie? How dare they, and such. And judging from some of the comment sections of these reviews, there are clearly some people who don’t understand how to cope with a negative review. Death threats to the critic are not the best coping method. No, seriously- click on that link. People actually threatened death because of a negative review of a movie about a guy dressed up as a giant bat. Fortunately, I’ve come up with this handy chart to help you should you encounter one of these nefarious critics who dare to say a movie is bad.

…with apologies to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross for using her coping methods to satirize the obnoxious nature of internet comment sections, and hilarious sanctity of Christopher Nolan’s franchise (a franchise I enjoy immensely, I might add).

I liked the Dark Knight a ton, but it’s not without flaws. The way I see it, the problem that happens is when fans and viewers compare it to films outside of the realm of summer popcorn movies and comic book movies and such. The Dark Knight has a higher viewer rating on IMDb than The Seventh Seal, North by Northwest, Goodfellas… That’s wacky. There’s zero context there.

I’m staying as far away from reviews as I can. That said, I wish to threaten death upon anyone threatening death over Batman. This world needs more vicious cycles of violence. Or not, but who’s counting.

I really enjoy your use of graphics! I was following this madness all day and this was the perfect summation of the absurdity. Why do they care about something so arbitrary? I could conceivably understand why people would react with such guile towards a movies box office numbers because this would actually have an effect on the future of a franchise or on their favorite director.

Not having a 100 percent is not going to change anything for this film. The dark knight had 18 negative reviews, and that movie was still trumpeted as a second coming of comic book/action movies. And while the best picture oscar is not the indication of the years best film, not one has come in at 100 percent. (Unless it has been helped by age, since every critic has not reviewed The Godfather for RT. But even then only six have gotten 100%)

It’s bizarre to me that anyone would care about the sanctity of a Rotten Tomatoes score, especially to the point that they’d hassle a critic over a negative review about it. Isn’t enjoying the film personally enough? And if a critic dislikes a film that you like, “you’re hurting the RT score” is completely insignificant as a defense of the film.

Love it! I may have to return to this after reading the negative stuff though I haven’t come across it yet! I have a contributor who has just handed me an essay entitled ‘why the Dark Knight is shit’ which I will be posting later. I’m actually a bit scared.

It’s sort of a double-edged sword, and all of these films deserve to be judged on their own merit (or lack thereof, for that matter). It’s not the fault of the Dark Knight films that it has some fans that are complete morons. That’s what bugs me about all of this. There are people who won’t judge it as a film. On one side, you’ve got blindly loyal morons who will bash a critic over a movie they haven’t seen. On the other side, you’ve got the backlash- people who have heard all of the great things and can’t wait to tear it down because of the complete morons.

I read yesterday in Andrew Sarris’ American Cinema that you can only argument with someone you agree with. I think that it is so true that people don’t like different ideas and positions than theirs. In the case of movie criticism it is so arbitrary.
Personally I get a little tired of buzz around movies like TDKR and it only diminishes my interest when the movie is discussed like that. I’ll probably end up seing it anyway, my second time in theaters this year after The Artist… And before you send me letters with anthrax I loved The Dark Knight and Nolan is a very talented filmmaker.
By the way, nice infographic I’ll refer to it before writing about TDKR!

I was so close to writing a different piece and calling it “Can a Movie’s Fans Ruin the Movie?” Because it’s so true that oversaturation and buzz place such high expectations on films months, even years, before they’re released. It’s not fair to the films or the filmmakers. But I imagine they don’t care too much because all of that buzz means they’ll make more money.

When Phantom Menace came out, the 16 year Star Wars withdrawal forces me to think positively about it. It was too much for me to come to terms with that the whole movie was made in front of a green screen and the kid who played Anakin was an annoying little shit who couldn’t act himself out of a wet paper sack. I even found myself defending JarJar Binks. I actually understand the anger towards the movie critics.

With the Phantom Menace, I did go through each of the stages. Once I made it to acceptance, I could accept and agree with the criticism. By doing that, I was able to find a few positives–Darth Maul was pretty badass.

It’s so funny that these assholes think that any opinion contrary to their own view of a film they have yet to see warrants death threats. I read a negative review from Christy Lemire and she justified all her complaints with the film in the article. I am sure I will enjoy The Dark Knight Rises when I see it on Friday. Do I think that it will be the greatest film ever made? No. Do I think it will be entertaining? Fuck Ya.

Even beyond the death threats, bashing a review for a film they haven’t even seen seems crazy, at least when done irrationally. If someone has a legit discussion, that’s all well and good. But there was a lot of stuff that wasn’t legit in that Lemire comments section.

I have to applaud this post; the image is itself quite a hoot, but at the same time it’s kind of honest and true. Fans need to learn to relax. Not everyone MUST love this sort of fare as much as they do, and there are no sacred cows. Everything is up for critical debate. Everything. And while I don’t like RT feeling compelled to shut down comments, I think that’s what has to happen when people can’t have civil discourse over a film like this.

The death threats are ridiculous in their own right, but the abusive language is just as appalling (for different reasons).

Thanks, Andrew. That’s high praise coming from you. And I couldn’t agree more. I like the Nolan films but I’m not going to ignore the flaws. There are tons of movies out there like that. When you make yourself blind to a film, you learn nothing.

The same thing happened over The Avengers. And… well, lots of other times, too. The female critics get it the worst because there’s a gaggle of nerdy fans who’ll drop all sorts of horrible and horribly unfair accusations at them.

How could I miss this post!! I was actually one of those who had some um, criticism about the movie as the are some glaring flaws but yeah there are a ton of people who are willing to defend this movie to the death as if they stand to earn a penny from it. It’s hilarious!! I mean, I posted a question in a major movie blog asking how Bruce could get from God-knows-where prison to Gotham with no money, no Alfred, no shoes even… and some guy just answered, “’cause he’s effin’ Batman!!” though obviously he was NOT Batman at the time as he need to go to his cave first which is in Gotham which is now surrounded by Bane’s army. That’s just ONE example, so yeah, this post is SPOT ON, John, as always! :D